The Orlando Magic have traded Vince Carter, Mikael Pietrus, and Marcin Gortat to the Phoenix Suns for Jason Richardson, Hedo Turkoglu, a first-round pick and Earl Clark. The Magic have also traded Rashard Lewis to the Washington Wizards for Gilbert Arenas.

Orlando

Orlando wants to win now. Not for the next few years, not down the line, growing together like a bunch of young saplings. Now. Otis Smith has acquired a dynamic scorer and playmaker in Gilbert Arenas who is not shooting well this year (39%) but has a chance to get some space now that he’s in Orlando. They acquired a power driving dunk artist with prolific three-point range in Jason Richardson, Hedo Turkoglu who is now old and not nearly the player he was two years ago, a first-round draft pick and Earl Clark, who will never see the floor, ever.

Gilbert Arenas has shown flashes of his scoring ability that made him so prolific four seasons ago. He managed to work reasonably well off-ball in Washington, and in Orlando will be granted license to run the offense. Jameer Nelson can work off-ball in conjunction with Arenas. How he’ll work with Dwight Howard will be a significant issue to keep an eye on. Arenas has never worked with a player like Howard before, and he’ll have to maintain the “it’s his team” attitude he had with Wall.

Richardson is the big win in this trade for Orlando. He’s averaging 19 points on 42% three-point shooting and he’ll get just as many open looks in Orlando. The question will be if he can play the kind of defense Stan Van Gundy will need him to and how he’ll fit in with the rotation. But Richardson is a clutch performer who has a history with Arenas in Golden State and should be thrilled to be going to a contender again.

Hedo Turkoglu is a no-lose option for the Magic. If he’s terrible, the team is deep enough not to worry about it. If he’s able to recapture anything close to what they had two years ago, they’ve got another great player to go to. His contract is long. So was Rashard Lewis’. And as we’ve seen today, no contract is unmovable.

Phoenix:

The future is later. Despite Steve Nash still being Steve Nash, the Suns have moved towards the future. Vince Carter is an expiring contract, they acquired a first round pick to build with, and ditched Hedo Turkoglu’s contract. They’re obviously moving towards the future. You have to wonder if this is a capitulation by Robert Sarver to move towards saving money. Vince Carter may experience a resurgence in Phoenix as so many players have with their training staff. But in the end, he’s just not a very good player anymore and not a player you can depend on in key situations. Losing Turkoglu at least clears up their frontcourt rotation and will allow Hakim Warrick more minutes. Phoenix looks towards the future.

Washington:

The Arenas-Butler-Jamison era is finally washed away completely. Agent Zero is over. Rashard Lewis is a marginal player at this point with a massive contract, but now the team is John Wall’s, 100%. The Gilbert Arenas era is through. They’re a bad team and they just got worse. But they do save a slight bit of money and can try and take a new approach in order to move towards the Wall-led future. It was over before it started for the Arenas Show in Washington. You’ve got to move forward eventually. They chose now.

In fact, in Saturday’s dunk contest, he didn’t look like a dunker at all.

The Pacers star missed all three attempts of his first dunk, and a Black Panther mask was by far the biggest draw of his second. Oladipo was eliminated after the first round.

Maybe Dennis Smith Jr. wasn’t the only eliminated dunker who left something in his bag. This Oladipo dunk – 180 degrees, throwing ball off the backboard with his left hand while in mid-air, dunking with his right hand – while preparing in Los Angeles was awesome.

A statement released Wednesday by the NFL and NBA clubs says their 90-year-old owner is resting comfortably at Ochsner Medical Center, a hospital which also serves as a major sponsor and which owns naming rights to the teams’ training headquarters.

Benson has owned the New Orleans Saints since 1985 and bought the New Orleans Pelicans in 2012.

In recent years, Benson has overhauled his estate plan so that his third wife, Gayle, would be first in line to inherit control of the two major professional franchises.

Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said he’d be surprised if Kawhi Leonard played again this season, a stark reversal from just a month ago. Back then, even while announcing Leonard was out indefinitely with a quad injury, the San Antonio coach said Leonard wouldn’t miss the rest of the season.

After spending 10 days before the All-Star break in New York consulting with a specialist to gather a second opinion on his right quad injury, All-NBA forward Kawhi Leonard bears the burden of determining when he’s prepared to play again, sources told ESPN.

Leonard has been medically cleared to return from the right quad tendinopathy injury, but since shutting down a nine-game return to the Spurs that ended Jan. 13, he has elected against returning to the active roster, sources said.

The uncertainty surrounding this season — and Leonard’s future which could include free agency in the summer of 2019 — has inspired a palpable stress around the organization, league sources said.

At first glance, this sounds like Derrick Rose five years ago. Even after he was cleared to play following a torn ACL, the then-Bulls star remained mysterious about when he’d suit up. His confidence in his physical abilities seemed to be a major issue, and he was never the same player since (suffering more leg injuries).

But the Spurs famously favor resting players to preserve long-term health. They seem unlikely to rush back Leonard. They might even sit players who want to play more often. And Leonard isn’t Rose.

Still, it’s clear something is amiss in San Antonio. Maybe not amiss enough to end Leonard’s tenure there, but the longer this lingers, the more time for tension to percolate.